Baking with Almond Flour

All your questions on baking with almond flour answered here! This instructional article takes the guesswork out of how to bake with almond flour, so you can indulge in low carb treats all year long. Take it from this self-proclaimed Almond Flour Wizard!

I’ve updated this post on how to bake with almond flour, as I’ve got a lot more good information to add!

I’ve been baking with almond flour for more than 8 years now and I have to say, I have gotten pretty good at it. I’ve been called The Keto Baking Queen by many people and it’s a title I’ve earned through many years of trial and error. I am proud of my low carb baking skills, and I find myself improving and growing on almost a daily basis. So I decided it was high time to update this article on How To Bake with Almond Flour so you can benefit from my experience!

Because almond flour is the basis of many of my keto recipes, I am highly comfortable with it. It’s perhaps one of the most versatile of the low carb flours, and works well in low carb cookies, cakes, and breads. It’s great for low carb pie crust too! You just have to know how to treat it, what to look for, and how to adjust if it doesn’t work quite as you expect.

So let’s get started. Answering your burning questions about baking with almond flour, right here, right now.

Fudgy Keto Brownies

Magic Cookie Bars

Classic Yellow Cake for Two

Almond Meal vs. Almond Flour – What’s the difference?

Let’s clear up any misconceptions right now that all almond flour is created equal. I get this question a lot, and the answer is a resounding NO! Sure, they are both made from ground almonds, but anything that calls itself almond “flour” should be finely enough ground that you can make fine-textured cakes and bread that rival their wheat-based counterparts.

It should also be blanched almond flour, so that you get no little dark bits of skin. There are several really good brands of finely ground almond flour, including Honeyville, WellBee, and Anthony’s. My favourite is Bob’s Red Mill Super Fine Blanched Almond Flour. Costco also sells good almond flour at a reasonable price, under their Kirkland brand, which I believe it actually produced by Honeyville.

Almond meal is more coarse and may contain the skin of the nuts. Almond flour is more fine and more consistent in grain size.

Almond meal is much more coarsely ground and if you place the two side by side, you can really see the difference. It’s still often good enough for baked goods where texture doesn’t matter quite as much, like low carb muffins or crackers. It can be both blanched (skins removed) and un-blanched (skins left on). And since it’s often less expensive, it may be preferable to almond flour at times. You don’t even have to buy almond meal, you can make it yourself if you have a good food processor.

So, if you’ve ever made an almond flour recipe and had issues with the final product holding together, leaching out the oils or butter, or not rising properly and holding its shape, a likely culprit is that you are using the coarser almond meal, instead of almond flour. The larger particles mean less cohesiveness for the finished product. For some things, it may not matter but for cakes and fine-textured items, it most certainly does. I don’t even keep almond meal around anymore, I use almond flour for everything.

Cheesy Garlic Bread Muffins

Low Carb Cranberry Muffins

Subbing Almond Flour for Wheat Flour

You’re going to hate me for saying this, but there is no easy formula here. It all depends on what you are trying to make. Cookies are dense and crunchy whereas cakes should be light and fluffy, and they are going to take very different ratios of almond flour to other ingredients.

I wish I could tell you it was as simple as swapping almond flour for wheat flour at a 1:1 ratio. But it’s not and when you think about it, you can see why. Almond flour is basically ground nuts, full of fat and moisture, entirely without gluten and not nearly as powdery, fine and dry as wheat flour. So there are a whole range of factors you need to account for when adapting a wheat-based recipe to low carb and gluten-free. You need to consider the texture, density, and moisture content of the baked good you want to make over.

A cup of almond flour also differs significantly in weight from a cup of wheat flour. Out of curiosity, I just went and measured the two (literally right now, as I am writing this) and a cup of wheat flour came to 5 oz, while a cup of Bob’s Red Mill blanched almond flour came to 3.75 oz. That’s more than a full ounce difference!

If you are a total beginner with almond flour, I’d actually suggest you stick to some tried and true recipes to get a feel for how it behaves and the overall proportions. That’s certainly how I started, 2 and 1/2 years ago. Once you have a good sense for almond flour recipes, you will find it easier to strike out on your own and adapt some family favourites.

Low Carb Cinnamon Roll Cake

Slow Cooker Chocolate Cake

Keto Kentucky Butter Cake

Let me tell you what I do, when I start making over a recipe. Take, for example, my Almond Crusted Butter Cake. The original wheat-based recipe took about 50% more butter and 50% less flour. Knowing that almond flour has a higher fat content but is less dense than wheat flour, I basically switched this ratio around. Then I doubled the baking powder and added in whey protein to make up for the lack of gluten and to give the end result more structure. Then I crossed my finger, said a little prayer, and popped it in the oven. And it has since become one of my all-time favourite keto cake recipes!

You can also increase the eggs for more protein and structure, but too many eggs can give the final result a rubbery texture or make it too “wet” and gummy in the center. I usually start with one more egg, and then add another closer to the end if the batter seems too heavy and thick.

One important thing to note when adapting wheat flour recipes is that your almond flour batter will almost always be thicker. Don’t expect it to look exactly like a wheat-based batter and resist the urge to thin it out with liquids, or you will likely end up with a soggy mess.

Other Nut Flours and Meals

People often ask me if they can use other nut flours and meals instead. I give the answer to this question as a tentative “yes”, with several caveats.

First off, I don’t know of too many other nut “flours” that are as finely ground as true blanched almond flour, so if texture and consistency of the end result is dependent on the grind, then you may have some difficulty. Some keto muffins, scone and cookie recipes lend themselves admirably to a simple swap of one nut flour/meal for another. Several of my biscotti recipes could be made with hazelnut meal instead of almond flour, as could some cracker and cookie recipes. And my Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake could easily be made with another nut meal of choice (walnut, almond, pecan…all of those would do well).

But finer cakes and cupcakes might become too crumbly, to coarse and possibly leach out oil during baking if you attempt it with anything but the most finely ground flours. If you want a fine crumb on your cake so that no one can guess it’s low carb, then you want finely ground almond flour.

Chocolate Hazelnut Sandwich Cookies

Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Scones

Hazelnut Mousse Cake

Sunflower Seed Flour

This is, in my opinion, the best nut-free substitute for almond flour, because it can be ground quite finely. You can even make your own sunflower seed flour easily at home. Check out How To Make Sunflower Seed Flour here.

The funny thing about sunflower seed flour, though, is how it can turn green when it’s baked. This is a reaction with the leavening agents like baking powder and baking soda and it doesn’t mean the baked good has gone bad. To offset this reaction, you need about 1 tablespoon of acid like apple cider vinegar or lemon juice. In chocolate recipes, the brown colour covers the green and you don’t really need to worry about it.

Coconut Flour vs. Almond Flour

Inevitably when I make a keto recipe with almond flour, someone comes along and asks if they can make it with coconut flour. And vice versa. Here’s the deal:

You cannot sub coconut flour for almond flour as a direct 1:1 substitution. I cannot state this more strongly. Don’t even think about trying it or you will end up with hard, inedible thing that is only good for using as a hockey puck. Check out my article on Baking with Coconut Flour for more information.

Coconut flour is an entirely different creature than any flour based on tree nuts. It’s fine, powdery, dense and soaks up liquids like nobody’s business. It also requires more eggs and sometimes more other “binders” like xanthan gum, to keep the final product together. And you want to use WAY less coconut flour for a recipe than you would almond flour, sometimes as little as 1/3 to 1/4. In essence, if you choose to make a recipe based on almond flour with coconut flour, you will need to restructure the whole thing.

If I were to take one of my basic almond flour recipes and rework it for coconut flour, I would start with about 1/3 the amount of flour, twice the eggs, some xanthan gum, a little more leavening agent like baking powder, and then I would add my liquids like coconut or almond milk last and not all at once. I would add some liquid, work it in and see how thick the batter was, then add a bit more and a bit more until it felt right to me. Again, “right” in this case is likely be a thicker batter than anything wheat-based, so it take some experimenting to get it right.

One good thing about working with coconut flour (and almond flour) is that they don’t contain gluten so over-mixing is usually not an issue. On occasion, I’ve been making a coconut flour recipe and suddenly thought it needs another egg or two. I’ve added it at the very end and had no problems with the end result. In this sense, at least, coconut and almond flours can be very forgiving.

Peanut Flour vs Almond Flour

The best answer I can give you here is: maybe. Peanut flour comes in a variety of forms, including roasted (light and dark), unroasted, partially defatted and full-fat. I ordered some peanut flour once that was essentially just ground peanuts and it did well as a sub for almond flour in several recipes. But the defatted ones are a little bit like coconut flour, they are very fine and powdery and soak up a lot of liquid. So they are going to require some reworking of the basic recipe in some of the same ways as coconut flour, although to a lesser extent.

How to Measure Almond Flour

Always use the scoop and level method, unless the recipe indicates otherwise.

I always simply scoop the almond flour from the bag or the canister, and level it off with a knife or sometimes with my hand. I never try to jam pack my cups to get more almond in there, so all of my recipes will be written assuming you simply measure an unpacked scoop. A well-written recipe should specify if you should pack the ingredients, so assume not if it doesn’t say. Sadly, not all recipes are that well written these days.

Many gluten-free recipes are done by weight, not volume, because gluten-free ingredients can differ significantly by brand. I am making an effort to do this more often now, especially when the recipe is on the tricky side and precise measurements matter. I would suggest investing in a small kitchen scale if you want to be more accurate. I will always give measurements by volume, however, since I want my recipes to be as accessible to as many people as possible. Weight measurements are more accurate overall, but it doesn’t do me any good if the reader doesn’t own a kitchen scale!

How to make Almond Flour Bread

Looking for a firmer bread you can toast and slather with peanut butter? Yeah, me too. Almond flour is by nature moist so if you use it on its own, your end result can be more cake-y than you want it to be.

I find that adding a little bit of a denser flour, like coconut flour or oat fiber, can help stiffen the batter and thus firm up the bread. I used coconut flour successfully in my Low Carb Panini Bread Recipe. The trick is to not increase the other wet ingredients, so the addition of this flour helps dry out the consistency of your bread.

You can also try using a little oat fiber, which is made from the husk, or the “bran” of the grain and not the grain itself. However, it may contain a little gluten so it’s not idea for people with a gluten intolerance.

Many people add psyllium husk to low carb bread recipes as well, which can give it more of a yeast-bread like texture. But depending on the brand of it can also make it gummy and sometimes it has a purplish hue.

Low Carb Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Cheesy Skillet Bread

Multi-Purpose Keto Bread Recipe

Using Protein Powder in Low Carb Baking

Why do I often use whey protein or egg white protein in my keto cakes and other baked goods? It isn’t, as some people think, to get more protein into my diet. I am an unabashed carnivore and consume plenty of protein.

It all comes down to the science of baking. Gluten is a protein and it’s part of what gives wheat-based baked goods structure, allowing them to rise and hold their shape. In gluten-free baking, adding in a dry protein can help make up for this. You can’t just add more egg whites because that will throw off the liquid to dry ratios. But you can easily swap out the whey for your protein powder of choice (hemp, soy, even egg white powder). The results may vary a little depending on the protein content per serving.

Freezing Almond Flour Baked Goods

With only a few exceptions, I would say yes, most almond flour baked goods are indeed freezer-friendly.

I have successfully frozen cakes, muffins, cookies, scones, and even some almond flour pie crust. I usually freeze after baking, and I freeze before I glaze or frost the baked good in question.

However, you can also freeze some unbaked items and then thaw before baking. I’ve done this successfully with almond flour cookies like my Butter Pecan Cookies and Chewy Ginger Cookies. The trick here is to roll them into balls and flash freeze on a cookie sheet. Then you can put them in a container or plastic bag and they can be frozen for months. Thaw fully before baking.

Chewy Ginger Cookies

Butter Pecan Cookies

How to Store Almond Flour

I keep my unopened bags of almond flour in my cellar, which is quite cool year round. Once a bag is opened, I transfer half of the almond flour to an airtight container and keep it on my counter. The rest is frozen or refrigerated to keep help it keep. I don’t recommend trying to bake with the almond flour straight out of the freezer. The high moisture and fat content will make it very clumpy and hard to work with.

More Almond Flour Baking Tips

Let your almond flour baked goods cool completely. My friends, I can’t emphasize this enough.It can be tempting to start cutting them up soon after they are baked, but try to resist or you may wind up with a heap of crumbs. The texture and cohesiveness of low carb baked goods always improves upon cooling and sitting. Crackers, cookies and tart crusts will crisp up better and breads and muffins will hold together better when left to sit for an hour or two.

Room temperature ingredients. Make sure your eggs, butter, and cream or almond milk are at room temperature, unless otherwise specified by the recipe. If they are cold, your batter will clump up.

Grease that pan well! Low carb goodies can stick more than conventional ones, so really work that butter or oil into the corners of your pan.

Watch it carefully. Almond flour baked goods can also brown more quickly than wheat flour recipes. If I am adapting a wheat-flour recipe, I almost always lower my oven temperature by 25 degrees F, and I watch it carefully. If the top and sides are browning too quickly, I cover the pan with aluminum foil.

Baking times are only aguide. Oven temperatures can vary tremendously so please only ever use baking times as a rough guideline. What takes 20 minutes in my oven may take 25 in yours. Or yours may be done faster. You should always set your timer for 5 minutes LESS than the baking time says, and then check on it every 5 minutes after that.

Cannoli Tart

Cranberry Cheesecake Pie

Brownie Truffle Pie

Ready to become an almond flour baking expert?

I hope that helped answer some of your most pressing almond flour baking questions. If you can think of anything I didn’t cover here, or you have some tips of your own you’d like to share, please leave a comment or send me an email. I’d be more than happy to update this little (long) treatise to cover more ground!

Nutritional Disclaimer

Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I am simply recounting and sharing my own experiences on this blog. Nothing I express here should be taken as medical advice and you should consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program.
I provide nutritional information for my recipes simply as a courtesy to my readers. It is calculated using MacGourmet software and I remove erythritol from the final carb count and net carb count, as it does not affect my own blood glucose levels. I do my best to be as accurate as possible but you should independently calculate nutritional information on your own before relying on them.
I expressly disclaim any and all liability of any kind with respect to any act or omission wholly or in part in reliance on anything contained in this website.

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Comments

I am diabetic, I am trying to eat healthier. I tried gluten free and found it is more agreeable with me. I eat less, am satisfied by a much smaller portion and tend not to eat late at night; all of which are better for me. I am new to baking my own gf bread so I am experimenting. I bought nuts in bulk to make my own almond milk(so good I just love home made) and the happy result was almond flour just for drying. I sift the meal( I do not use blanched almonds, made the choice for more nutrition) I am finally getting more palletable bread. YEAH. Then I see “do not use almond flour too high in calories” I found your blog and you have excellent suggestions. Thank You. A side note is by eating less, I am loosing weight( it’s a GOOD thing) It is a struggle. GF for me is the way to go, I have more energy and feel better and I like to play with my food…… 😉

URGENT. Just found this site. Very encouraging. My husband needs to lose weight and I need to figure out the best recipes. After considering one recipe I would like to know if I can put the almond flour, baking powder and salt together to store it for a few days?

Hi Carolyn,
I’ve just made an orange cake with almond flour, eggs, sugar and cooked whole orange. It looks and smells great, and it’s for a party tomorrow. Before serving, I’ll sprinkle icing sugar on it.
Would you please tell me how I should store the cake? Do I wrap it, refrigerate it, put it on the back porch??????
Thanks.

I just wanted to say that I make my own almond milk. After straining I am left with almond pulp which I then dehydrate at no higher that 115 degrees then process in food processor resulting in almond flour. I like using this better that Bobs or any store bought almond flour as it is not grainy and more powdery like regular flour.

Thank you so much for taking the time to post this! Baking is tricky for many, and often the result is not good enough for the picky one’s of us. Your recepies lokes lovely, and I think I’ll try one this weekend 🙂 But- How to choose????

Ok, at last I’m ready to give it a whirl. Thanks for answering so many of the questions I had about baking with almond flour! I think the only way I can get my dear husband on board with wheat-free living is with great baking…so wish us luck!

brilliant pice, loads of great tips for those who have and haven’t tried baking with Almond flour.

I have, with great success (your poppy-seed & lemon bundt cake)
and with no success whatsoever (as with your almond butter cake. I know where I went wrong though: I made my own almond milk and thought it would be no problem to use the cup of almonds I had soaked for the milk in the cake recipe. WRONG!! And boy was it 🙁 So good tip there too 😉 )

Loads of would be bakers will love you like we who know you already do.

This is great information! To be honest, I have found no need to try to convert a traditional recipe to one using almond flour. You have so many good recipes that my every wish for yummy baked goodness can be found here on your blog, as well as those of your fellow Low-Carbing Among Friends authors 🙂

Thank you so much for sharing all of your research….Years ago I adapted a lower carb lifestyle and was quite happy with it…..except for baking…..never could seem to find the time to get the hang of it…..I am turning over a new leaf today….thanks for offering the information to help increase my confidence for the task.

You may want to add an option for Canadians (although I think available in US too) is JK Gourmet. I would think it is equal to Honeyville (although I’ve never used Honeyville). It is the finest one here as far as I know. http://www.jkgourmet.ca/products/almond-flour-2

My husband and I are new to the wheat free eating, and all I can say is bless you for your information on almond flour, I had just about given up on being able to bake anything ever again, I will buy correct almond flour, and try again. Thank you.

Thank you so much, this is one of those articles that makes me think, “well, this changes everything!”

I had been using almond meal all along, until I purchased a bag of almond flour from Honeyville at your suggestion. Now, everything is so light and fluffy, almost indistinguishable from the regular flour versions.

This is a great tutorial on almond flour 🙂 Thank you! I would like to comment on the 2 vendors you recommended and how excited I was to see their pricing for a 5 lb. bag of almond flour; however, living in Alaska which apparently isn’t part of the US according to them, charged me an extra $29 to ship it here.

Thank you for the vendor referral. I’m still trying it out but disappointed with the price gouging on shipping.

Wonderful!! Thanks, Carolyn 🙂 I’ll check them out. At the end of the day, the cost is worth it to me to stay healthy and eat yummy, tasty food that isn’t full of preservatives, sugar, chemicals, etc.
I love your site/recipes. Thank you for all your help 🙂

Carolyn, a swell job covering the bases! I love how you included the tip to not cut into almond flour home baked treats until completely cooled. So many home bakers are tempted to dig right in while still warm and then, after falling to temptation, are disappointed when the cake or loaf falls apart or totally implodes…not unlike Clark Griswold’s turkey in the film, Christmas Vacation! Again, swell job!

Thank you so much for this. Since removing grains and sugar from my diet, I feel like I’m learning to bake all over again. This is incredibly useful information and so beautifully accompanied by your photography. Lovely site!

A great primer Carolyn. What I took away is the reminder all flours are not created equal and the characteristics of each must be considered when using them. One can’t just swap them ‘willy nilly’ with predictable results.

Hi Gail. My best suggestion with pancakes is to keep them on the smallish side, no bigger than about 3 inches in diameter. They are really hard to flip and keep together, otherwise! Xanthan gum can definitely help a bit…so can a bit of protein powder.

thanks for this… I used almond flour in a cake recently… a sugar, egg, and dairy free one… but I didn’t know the tip about letting it cool! So my cake was a total flop! I ended up layering the crumbles torte style, with strawberries and cool whip. But I have courage to try this again, thanks to you!

Wow! Thanks so much for this! I do try to convert carby recipes for baked goods and, to some degree like the challenge, but my results are somewhat unpredictable. Not inedible but sometimes not as good as I want them to be. You are so nice to share this valuable information with us!

I, like you I’m sure, am buried in snow this morning and may just have to amuse myself by baking something.

What a terrific article you created. I too, like many others had no idea of the difference between almond meal and almond flour. I certainly understand now and thank you very much for enlightening all of us. I now feel more comfortable using them. Thanks for your great recipes and information.

I have been low carbing for a year. Your blog, and the three low carbing with friends cookbooks have been among my greatest inspirations. Thank you so much for the flour recommendations! Hoping to receive an improvement in my low carb baked goods by changing my almond flour source!!! Really appreciate the specifics!

Carolyn, thanks for clearing this up. I did have one question. I think I get hung up between the words almond flour and almond meal. On the Honeyville web site it says ” Blanched Almond Flour, also known as almond meal, can be substituted for flour in cakes, breads, cookies, muffins, and your favorite recipes that call for flour. The taste and texture is phenomenal.” It seems to say that blanched almond flour is also known as almond meal, but your post says that flour and meal are different. Still alittle confused. I will however try your brand recommendations because I have found my baked goods are alittle too heavy using what I have been using in the past.

Hi Pattie. In reality, there will always be a spectrum of how finely ground the almonds are. But I make a distinction between truly finely ground blanched almond flour (and Honeyville definitely falls into that category) and things that just aren’t as finely ground and may or may not be blanched. Trust me, the finer the grind, the more “floury” and the better your results for fine-textured things.

Thank you so much! I am ready to start baking again now that I know not to eat almond meal. I have not seen almond flour in the stores. I will search today and if I can’t find it I will order. Fantastic article! You are such a blessing in so many lives, Carolyn.

So glad you posted this! I plan to refer back to it again in future. (Most important bit: knowing you do NOT pack when measuring. My first almond-flour recipes recommended packing the cup down, and I’m so used to doing it that it never occurred to me to wonder!)

Also, in terms of almond flour that is actually ground fine enough to be called flour, I order mine from digestivewellness.com and it’s never failed me yet.

Thanks for your informative info about Almond flour. I recently read that heating almonds/almond flour can lead to unhealthy, rancid results related to Omega 6’s etc. Do you know anything about this issue? I successfully made some banana muffins for my picky son with almond flour and was thrilled that he would eat them and excited to try more recipes but then heard that baking with almond flour is unhealthy. I’m very confused.

Hi Christina,
I am not a health expert expert by any stretch, and although I’ve read bits and pieces here about the “unhealthy” effects of heat and nuts together, none of it is from a true, unbiased scientifically-based and peer-reviewed study. It’s all opinion-editorials from so-called health bloggers who may or may not have any qualifications to back up their claims. So I personally take it with a grain of salt.
Omega 6’s are NOT bad for us, and are, in fact, required for our health. The problem in modern society is that our diet is high in Omega 6 and not nearly high enough in Omega 3’s. It’s the skewing of this ratio that is at issue here, because our diets have long been reliant on grains as staples. Almonds and other nuts may be high in Omega 6 when compared to fish, but they are a far healthier choice than grain-based baked goods. Regardless, no one should be subsisting entirely on a diet of nuts!
My diet is balanced out in Omega 3s by lots of fish, grass-fed meats (not grain-fed, so they are far higher in Omega 3s), cage-free eggs, seeds, etc. I have a lot on my plate to worry about about. One baked good a day made with almond flour isn’t one of them. 🙂
Please know that these are my opinions only and not meant to be medical or health advice.

I was just wondering how long it would be before someone decided to crack on nut flours! I just heard that coconut oil is now “deadly” due to high fat content. It amazes me how these goobers throw something ridiculous out there to scare the poop outta those of us who are legitimately trying to eat more healthy food…with nothing to back it up! I call BS on them all! I’ve been drinking bulletproof coffee every single day for 5+ years, and using nut flours for almost as long. I’ve lost 60+ lbs and have kept it off! Cholesterol, good and bad, are really great, and I feel better than ever! Thanks so much for all your hard work and best of all…sharing it with us! You ROCK! 🙂

Thank you for this very informative article! I just found your website and am looking forward to trying many recipes. I personally am only really looking to reduce the carbs in my diet. I don’t need to remove gluten So do you think it would it be helpful to just add a spoonful of gluten to things baked with almond flour or is there another reason using whey is better? Thanks!

Whey powder adds protein, and since gluten is actually a protein, you need to replace it to helps things rise. I think adding a tbsp of gluten would help too, but you’d need a bit more than that to get things to rise properly. Not sure how much, you will probably have to experiment.

I’m trying to do low-carb too because my husband was just diagnosed with diabetes and I have wondered the same thing about just adding gluten to stuff! I tried it with buttermilk pancakes today and they held together a lot better (I think about two tablespoons for one cup flour, so a lot) than yesterday when I made them without. I don’t see why low carb dieters who don’t have allergies to gluten haven’t talked about this online. Gluten plus almond flour will be my best friend if I can figure out how they work together. So basically whenever your recipe calls for protein, just replace with gluten, right?

I found your site tonight, and want to thank you for the information. However, what I’m trying to find out is if i can use the meal leftover from making almond milk. If it’s dried, would that be considered almond flour/meal? Everything else makes sense to me, but I’m just curious about that. Do you know ? and thanks!

I wish I could tell you. Yeast is very tough with low carb and gluten free ingredients. Part of what makes conventional recipes rise with yeast is the way the gases get trapped by the gluten strands that develop. No gluten means no way to trap the gases properly. I haven’t experimented too much with yeast and low carb yet!

This is a great tutorial. Thank you so much. My hubby and I found almond flour to be pretty expensive so I had read that I could try making my own. I am using it right now in one of your recipes as the sour cherries on our tree have become ripe and wanted to make a dessert with some of them. Being new to all of this, I was disappointed in my attempt to make the blanched almonds into ‘flour’. It really was quite mealy…nothing like ‘flour’. I was afraid to keep going as I feared I would end up with almond butter. I thought my processor was pretty good…that baby will chop and grind up anything. I know from your comments it won’t matter for this crust but should I just bite the bullet and put out for the packaged almond flour…what we fund was ‘Red Mill Flour/Meal’ and I have to say it looked like flour just seeing it through the bag.
Would love your opinion. I am trying to fight some insulin resistance I seem to be developing….A1Cs are normal but fasting sugars are not. I am an RN and do NOT want to move on to being diabetic so am changing my (our!) eating habits now.
Blessings.

Hi Georgeanne. It’s true, you simply can’t grind almond flour fine enough at home. It will make a great crust, and some muffins will be good too, but if you’re looking for a fine-textured cake, you won’t quite get it. And I love Bob’s Red Mill, but their almond flour isn’t quite as fine either, although good for most baked goods. The cadillac of almond flour is Honeyville, which you can buy on the Honeyville website. Next to that, my favourite is from Oh Nuts!

Hi, Carolyn. Went shopping today to pick up some of the staples….some I couldn’t find and will order online. But I have 2 questions: I see that in a number of your recipes you use Stevia drops or extract……just wondering why you add those? Are the items not sweet enough with just the erythritol?? MUST these be used? Lastly, I was wondering why there isn’t a way to ‘save’ some of the recipes you have here to my ‘recipe box’ here on your site. I have a couple things I put in there but there were a couple recipes that didn’t have the option of saving them….for instance the recipe for your peanut butter/chocolate donuts. Should questions like this be addressed somewhere else?
Thank you 🙂
Georgeanne

Hi Georgeanne,
In some ways, my use of two sweeteners is just habit. I started doing it that way in the beginning and so I’ve just kept doing it. But here’s why: 1. Erythritol is expensive and stevia is not. That little jar of stevia extract will last a long time. My readers can’t always afford erythritol in full quantities so it helps to use a little less of it per recipe. 2. I’ve always found that using the two together helps increase sweetness and decrease aftertaste. Now that I use Swerve, I don’t have the problem as much with either sweetness or aftertaste, but again, my readers can’t always afford Swerve in full quantity.
I’d be happy to rewrite the recipes you want to save on Ziplist. It’s simply time and energy, so tell me which ones you want besides the donuts and I will make an effort to go back and put them in the Ziplist format.
Thanks!

Hi Carolyn. I use Honeyville, all ingredients at room temp, but often my baked goods sink in the middle. I only use recipes from your site and those of your friend at @ Low Carbing Among Friends. What am I doing wrong?

Somehow there is too much liquid, and/or not enough protein. It’s hard to say if I am not in the kitchen with you but try adding a bit more protein powder and either reducing the liquid by a few tbsp or adding more almond flour by a few tbsp.

I have been following and sharing your FB page and recipes for a bit and I love your blog.
I was looking for some type of ideas on how to use almond flour and this post hit it right no the nail- that was genius; no joke. On the joke note, love your funny memes and posts too 🙂

I would like to as for permission to mention this post on my article to be published, being that I am also trying to remove as much sugar and grains from our family’s diet as possibly.

Of course there will be the corresponding mention and link to your posts.

I tried using almond flour to make waffles for the first time today — they were super bitter. Wondering if I did something wrong, does almond flour have a bitter taste naturally or maybe I bought a rancid bag. Thanks

I want to low-carb a recipe for a strawberry jello cake (paula deen’s – she adds the dry jello mix to the dry ingredients rather than a poke-cake method. already found a sugar free gelatin mix that works) that adds a bag of pureed strawberries to the cake batter. I am concerned about how the liquid might throw off the recipe, and how to counter it, however.

Please advise what if anything I might need to change in an LC cake recipe, below are ingredients I have to work with:

I’m currently using a Low-carb all purpose flour replacement as I only have about 1/2 cup of almond MEAL remaining, and maybe 3/4 cup coconut flour. I have xanthan gum, flax seed meal, carbquik, and whey protein powder, too.

Because your low carb mix uses real wheat flour, I doubt you have to worry as much about the moisture content as if you were using almond. But when I do use almond flour and am including a “wet-ish” ingredient, I usually add about 1/4 cup coconut flour to help soak up that extra moisture. You could try that if you were concerned.

Thank you for this post! When starting low carb, I purchased almond “flour” in bulk from my local grocery store. It is so coarse and I didn’t realize it was because I had purchased the wrong thing. I am almost out and just put in an Amazon order (using your link) for the Honeyville. I’m excited to see what the consistency is like!

Thanks for the handy primer. Some good tips in there that I might not have thought of my first time around, like increasing the leavening agent and compensating for the lack of gluten. Will be starting a keto diet soon, but I’ll need some baked goods to get me through. I think almond flour will fit the bill nicely!

Thank you so much for your post!! I have a quick question and wondered if someone could help me…. I live overseas and can access almond “meal” (as you described it) really easily, but it is very coarsely ground. Will it turn to mush if I put it in my coffee grinder or food processor to make it more finely ground? Anyone had any experience with that?

Also, I have done a lot of homemade almond milk and saved the pulp leftover and dried it out in my oven. Now I have a ton of coarse, bread-crumb like stuff that I have no idea what to do with but don’t want to just throw out. It seems that it could be very valuable in low carb baking! Any ideas? Would this be more like coconut flour since the oil has been taken out during the milk making process? Like I said, I am new to this, so any thoughts and advice would be GREATLY appreciated!!! Thanks again so much for this post!!

My thoughts…I think you could grind your almond meal a little more finely without it turning into almond butter. Give a little bit a try and see what happens. If you have a large food processor, you will actually need to put in a fair bit…I find they don’t grind small amounts well. Do you have a coffee grinder? That might be worth a try too.

Thank you SO much for this great article. My bf is dieting…which means so am I. I am a sucker for carbs and that’s #1 OFF his list. I’m in need of low card alternatives and this has given me a light at the end of the tunnel. Definitely going to try …probably all of these recipes. lol.

Hi Carolyn, have just come across your website today whilst trying to find out why my baked goods using almond flour always have a horrid taste to them – I live in the UK and have bought ground almonds which if I’m reading your post correctly is basically almond meal and not the flour that I thought. I have 3 bags of it but it won’t go to waste as I have a couple of recipes which don’t require baking so can use them up. Does the ‘taste’ come from the almond meal (ground almonds) heating up i.e. the fats? Every single recipe I’ve tried just never tastes quite right, I’ve found it difficult to source blanched almond flour and to be honest, I’m probably scared to try it incase it still tastes weird. Maybe it’s just my taste buds, but I know not to expect bread for instance to taste exactly like bread made with wheat flours. Help!

Do you like almonds normally? If so, then I can’t think it’s the almond flour/meal. They are only different from each other in terms of texture. Mind you, the unblanched variety does have the skins and maybe it’s a little bitter to you. But I might also wonder if it’s the sweetener you are using – what have you tried? Have you tried it any sort of chocolate recipe? Try these basic muffins (I made them with almond meal, unblanched), because chocolate can really hide flavours you might not like as much. https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/2010/05/mocha-muffins-with-chocolate-chunks-low-carb-and-gluten-free.html

Wow those muffins look great, will give them a try! I love almonds so was surprised with the weird taste, maybe it is the skins as it does seem to be quite bitter. Can’t remember all the sweeteners I’ve tried as have tried several different almond flour recipes from bread to english muffins – don’t think either even had sweetener. Will try the muffins and see if the chocolate helps – haven’t eaten bread in that long I don’t know why I keep trying to make it. Thanks for your reply.

Hi – I live in the UK too and tried the almond flour from Holland and Barrett in the chocolate cheesecake recipe and the base tasted like dog biscuits! The filling was great though. Even my daughter said it was like dog biscuits before I even mentioned what I thought it tasted like 🙂
Any suggestions – is it just the flour from HB? Loathed to by some more as super expensive at £9.99 for 500g – ouch!

Is it super fine and defatted almond flour? The one here in the US is just ground blanched almonds but I know that some of the ones in Europe are different… very powdery with much of the fat removed so they work very differently.

Hi. I’m a newbie only because my mother had her cholesterol check and her Dr noticed her blood sugar was just slightly high. She figured it was time to cut back on pasta, breads, chips, etc which we both LOVE! Both of us need to lose weight, anyway. So hard to give up stuff you love but after reading various articles about low carb recipes and ingredients, they don’t look too difficult to change your diet! I love to cook and bake. I read your article on almond flour and that you can freeze them. My question is: is it better to portion out, maybe by cups, to keep in the freezer so you can pull out what you need to bake with? I’m not sure what would be the typical amount for a cake/muffin/bread recipes.I think it’s pretty smart to do that so you don’t have to refreeze the flour over and over. What do you think?

I typically keep 6 or 7 cups of almond flour on my counter in a tupperware and put the rest of the bag in the freezer, but I use a lot of almond flour so that’s a good amount for me. I don’t think it matters that it thaws and freezes again when I get more but you could easily portion it out in ziploc bags.

I was the same Carolyn. However, I made the obvious connection. The foods I loved, some of them espoused as healthy, were making me obese. Only after going low-carb for two months do I realise how much harm I was doing to myself. Type 2 diabetes frightened me. No more starch or sugar for this one!

Thank you so much for the detailed description. It was very informative. I have a questions that might be more superficial. I do not like the taste of almond extract in desserts. Does almond flour add a similar flavor to baked goods? Thanks!

Surely almond bread is bread. Period. I don’t get how it won’t interfere with a very low carb diet. I want to try it, but I’m worried it will torpedo all my efforts and start to put fat back on my waist etc. I’d like to toast it, and lather it with lashings of toasted cheese and tomatoes.. How would that taste I wonder. Thank you.

The only thing about hazelnut flour is that it’s typically not as finely ground. And it has the husks on so you see brown flecks. But I’ve used it in many muffins and cookie recipes and it still works out very well. Do you have a recipe in mind?

Hi Carolyn. Above, you say that you don’t include weights in your recipes because many of your readers don’t use the scale to bake. I’m wondering if, sometime when you get around to it, you might weigh *your* typical 1 cup of almond flour as you scoop it into the measuring cup? Probably a little anal of me, but I do think it helps to weigh if I’m struggling to get a particular recipe to come out a certain way. And: lazy! It’s easier to weigh. I promise not to quote you back to yourself. 🙂

That is an interesting question! Well, for many recipes, it’s 2 or 3 cups of almond flour to 1/4 to 1/3 cup of whey protein powder. I do it by gut instinct so there is no hard and fast ratio but I guess it would be 8:1 or 9:1.

Hello,
I was wondering in using almond flour for making bread. You said you used a whey protein powder to hold the structure. What is the difference between that and vital wheat gluten? Which one is better to use?

I was baking a lot with almond flour, until last year when I discovered I cannot eat eggs or dairy. The amount of eggs required in these recipies has scared me away from trying them, not wanting to waist ingredients having it not work. I DO use ground chia seeds and water to sub in other recipies, but only to replace 1 or 2 eggs. Do you have any experience using substitutes for eggs in the larger quantities?

I’ve used this recipe a couple of times but have trouble with the bread falling as it cools, after I take it out of the oven. I bought some blanched almond flour at my local Natural Grocer store that looked as if they had ground it at the store. They keep it in the big cooler at the back of the store. BUT, after reading your description of almond flour, I have to wonder whether what I have is really almond flour, because it looks rather gritty to me. Could this be the reason why my bread keeps falling as it cools?

I would like to try some of your recipes, and I live at 6000 feet. Do you know if high altitude affects baking with almond flour? I don’t have the patients for trial and error, and I hate to waste ingredients if it doesn’t turn out well.

I don’t live at altitude so it’s hard to say for sure. But I had this one person say some things about my multipurpose bread recipe and it may apply to other recipes as well:

I’ve lived at high altitudes my whole life. My elevation here is over 5000 feet. The air pressure is lower, so things rise too fast before the structure has set, which makes it collapse. You have to DECREASE the baking powder and INCREASE the temperature. I made this with those changes and got a lovely loaf that did not deflate. I used 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder with an oven temp. of 375 degrees. I baked it in an 8″ x 4″ nonstick metal pan, sprayed with coconut oil spray, for 75 minutes. Then I took it out of the oven, which I turned off, put the loaf on a metal rack and put it back in the oven to slowly cool for another hour. Since I was using Now psyllium, I used the higher water amount.

Many thanks for this – very helpful. I’m hoping you can help even more, though!
My wife is allergic to grasses, so she is trying various recipes. Ground a!minds for cupcakes goes well, but she has recently been using almond flour to try to replicate choux pastry, for profiteroles, but without success. Do you have any experience of making choux pastry yourself, and any advice?

how do I keep baked goods made of almond flour & other low carb flours
from over browning on the bottoms, I made your handpies with a meat filling
but it was really difficult to tell when they were done. At 12 min, they still looked raw on top, at 15 they started to turn a light gold on the edges, but the tops were still white so I left them in for a total of 17 min; they looked perfectly done on top
but when I removed them the sheet to cool they all were very dark brown on the bottoms, I baked them on parchment paper on a 9 by 11 jelly roll pan
on the very top rack of my electric oven, which has only 1 rack, that I can adjust.

Sounds like your oven might be the issue here, not conveying heat very well to the rest of the oven. Not sure how to fix this for you if you are already putting them on the top rack! One suggestion may be to get a silpat (the silicone baking mats) to protect the baked goods a little more on the bottom.

Great info here. I wonder if you’ve seen or used King Aurthur almond flour. It seems finer than the Red Mill, and I can get it without having to mail order. If you’ve seen it I’d appreciate you’re telling me how it compares to your preferred choice. Thanks.

Hi Carolyn! Beautiful presentation of delicious almond flour recipe, you have shared. What an almond flour recipe it was! This is my favorite one also. I love your blogs which always come with new recipe with new taste. Keep it up and keep sharing as such.

I know this is an older post of yours, but I am hoping you and your readers find my comment helpful. ( Though you may already know this info and posted about it. )
I’m always on the lookout for low carb ingredients in my local grocery stores because I’m super impatient and want to try new recipes and new ingredients yesterday! I don’t like waiting for things to be shipped to me. I have ordered things, of course, but I really prefer getting my paws on it ASAP!

I have found a super finely ground and finely ground almond flour by Bob’s Red Mill, and once I even found the King Arthur super fine almond flour in a store. ( That blew my mind, haha. My jaw literally dropped right there in the flour aisle. ) I can find Bob’s Red Mill at Publix, Whole Foods, and I’ve seen it at Wal-mart too, which is where I found the King Arthur, but the store closest to me does not carry it. I’ve used both of the brands and find they are just as good as Honeyville and JK Gourmet. Just wanted to put that info out there, if that’s okay. I thought it may make it easier for people like me who hate waiting for ingredients…haha. 🙂

Hope it is okay to name the stores. If not, I apologize in advance.
Your blog is just so great, and has helped me broaden my low carb baking horizons. I’ve been doing low carb exclusively for 3 years now, and I also have a wicked sweet tooth, so your blog has been indispensable to me. Yay for low carb yummies!

I am new to your website, I just subscribed. I’m so happy I found you, as I have Hasimoto’s (hypo thyroid) and have had to go gluten free. Finding satisfying, tasty breads and desserts has been hard, as I live in the Caribbean and it is hard to find many of these things, that are also low carb. I have been experimenting with almond, coconut and tapioca a bit, and have made some nice things. This is so helpful and I have been drooling over so many of your recipes. Thank you for such a great and informative website..

You mentioned that you might add whey protein in almond flour recipes to compensate for the absence of gluten when you remove the wheat flour. But, pure whey powder is gluten free. Did you make a mistake? Or, is there something other than gluten that you are seeking out in the whey powder that offers gluten-like influences?

Thank you whole heartedly for your article. It’s packed full of useful information and you’re truly a pioneer in almond flour baking.

Thank you so much for explaining how to use this flour. I love all your sweet treats (so does my family). I know when I make one of your recipes, it will be wonderful! Eating keto sweets is not cheap and I know when I make something of yours it won’t go in the trash.

I’ve been trying a handful of your recipes and loving them so far! Thanks so much for posting them 🙂 I am a new baker to almond flours/coconut flours etc. and really appreciate your blog!

I did have a few questions about using baking soda/powder and the science of baking. I noticed that in some chocolate chip cookie recipes you have used baking soda or powder. Why is that? Also, when doing some research about these leavening agents, I read that baking soda always needs an acid to activate it, however in some of your cookie recipes like this (https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/single-serve-low-carb-chocolate-chip-cookies/) you use baking soda without an acid (like buttermilk, etc). I just made the cookie and saw that it rose significantly and turned out well – how does this additive work within the recipe without an acid?

Hi Lexi. Baking soda in cookies is common because you don’t want them to rise per se, but it helps them puff up a little and it typically browns better than baking powder. That’s why you often see it in cookie recipes with no extra acid to help it rise. Very different than if you were to make a cake!

You reversed the meaning of the terms “blanched” and “unblanched” in your description. Blanched almonds have had the skins removed.
Glad to find this page. I have a big bag of almond flour and want to start doing something with it so I”ll be looking at recipes. I hope there’s one for zucchini bread since that’s in season; if not I”ll use your tips and do some experimenting.

I am not sure what you are seeing but I think you are not reading it right. I used blanched for almond flour and I clearly say: It should also be blanched almond flour, so that you get no little dark bits of skin.

What a great article.As a chef, the baking was not part of what I personally did so I am now learning about baking with almond flour and coconut flour. Here in Mexico they can be hard to find although Bob’s Red Barn is starting to appear in some “American” stores. I really thank you for all the personal detail you shared, I am sure it will save me from baking a lot of hockey pucks. Hockey is not a big sport here in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

I was wondering if you could give me some pointers. I’m looking to adapt a family cookie recipe to keto. The cookies are similar to most Viennese Crescent Cookies recipes you see online (similar to this: http://www.kitchme.com/recipes/buttery-viennese-crescent-cookies) – they are short and tend to spread and puff up a bit. They are textured inside because of the hazelnut meal that you make to create them.

I tried baking some almond bread with psyllium husk powder. I got a container from NOW Foods. I heard their’s was a good brand, and I could get a small container (12oz). I had read it was the secret to making wonderful bread. It was a recipe I found on Pinterest. However, the hot bread had a horrible smell! And it pretty much tasted like it smelled! I’ve never heard anyone else having this problems. Is it just me? Because of that, I hesitate to use it again.

I find that most almond flour baking recipes day that the finished beads, cookies, biscuits etc. should bee stored in an air tight container for a few days. Can you explain why just a few days?
Thanks
Jeff (keto for 13 months now)

If you mean in a container on the counter, then it’s because sugar free recipes like this are more prone to mold, since sugar inhibits mold but other sweeteners do not. But you can often keep them in the fridge for up to a week.

Hi! You sure know a lot about almond flour so I will consider you the expert for my question! I make a specialized chocolate chip cookie dough product that is wildly popular. Because of concerns about E. coli in raw flours such as Gold Medal and Pillsbury, it is recommended that I bake my flour for 10 minutes to destroy any potential bacteria. Therefore I do this religiously when making my cookie dough for raw consumption. I am trying to produce a gluten-free cookie dough for raw consumption and I am wondering if you suggest that it would be necessary to do the same with blanched almond flour. Since the almond flour is actually very finely ground nuts, I’m not sure whether it would be required. Any thoughts? Thanks!

I am very new to almond flour substitution. I began eating Keto about 6 weeks ago and I am just now beginning to attempt converting some of my favorite family recipes using almond flour. I would like to know if there is a formula for adding zantham gum to almond flour as a direct substitute for wheat flour? I would like to attempt making some Indian Fry Bread, but my recipe is very simplified and I’m not sure where to start for adding zantham gum to my recipe to get a close consistency for the original recipe. Any suggestions would be helpful! Thank you in advance.

Hi planning to bake a paleo cake using almond flour, I need the texture to be similar to sponge cake (light n fluffy yet firm enough to frost it). Would it be possible to replace the cake flour to almond flour (1:1) or need to add some arrowroot flour? The recipe requires baking powder, can I add the same amount of baking powder or increase the amount of baking powder if I use almond flour? Pls advise thanks

No, it’s never possible to replace cake flour with almond flour 1:1. Please use one of my MANY cake recipes and follow the amounts and instructions there. You can use a paleo sweetener like coconut sugar, but if you use honey, you will need to reduce the liquids.

I’m new to Keto baking but since I found your site and recipes, I’m hooked. I read this article a while back and just re-read it trying to figure out why I ended up with a pile of (delicious!) crumbs instead of a cake! I have learned my lesson about letting it cool completely.
Thank you for all your hard work and time with your blog and recipes. I plan to head over to Amazon and buy your cookbooks right now!

Thanks, Carolyn. This is the recipe link:https://swervesweet.com/recipes/glazed-chocolate-donuts
I made this recipe once before and it worked pretty well. I used coconut oil that time instead of avocado oil. This time I used avocado oil and used a food processor instead of a blender, but only used the pulse a few times so it didn’t get overly processed(? does that matter?).
The only other difference between my batch today and before is the brand of almond flour. I used 1cup Bob’s Red Mill before. This time I used 3/4c Bob’s red mill and 1/4 c Kirkland’s Blanched Almond flour to make up the full 1c almond flour.

I may not have baked them long enough. I’m not sure how to tell when my items are done. Is there a way similar to wheat flour where you can press it and it springs back, etc.?

And I just realize YOU have a donut recipe! Why, why, why didn’t I look there first?! 🙂

As I mentioned, I’m new to all of this, but am enjoying learning by trial and error. I appreciate your response and any tip you can offer for future success.

Thanks. I bought your cookbook for Keto desserts yesterday, and after reading it, (and wiping the drool off my screen), I found some tips (such as weighing the flour and really, REALLY oiling the pans) that I think will help me. I’ll be making it again soon so I’ll be more careful.
Thanks again!

[…] “Almond flour is ground nuts, full of fat and moisture, entirely without gluten and not nearly as powdery, fine and dry as wheat flour. So there are a whole range of factors you need to account for when adapting a wheat-based recipe to low carb and gluten-free. ” Source […]

[…] of work and in part because baking with coconut flour isn’t quite as much my expertise as baking with almond flour is. There is also a great deal to be said about coconut flour, and I wanted to be as thorough as […]

[…] Carolyn came up with her own formula for cooking with almond flour, and there is where I got the right ratio of the right amount of whey protein and almond flour. Basically,you want to add half the fat, double the flour and baking powder from the original recipe. Then add some whey protein to make up for the gluten. And so that is what I did. Read more on about Low Carb Basics: Baking with almond flour. […]

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Looking for the best low carb recipes? You've come to the right place! I'm Carolyn, a major carnivore and an unrepentant sweet tooth. Here you will find all you need to enjoy the low carb keto lifestyle to the fullest! Read more